


who are you to tell me how to keep myself afloat?

by futuresailors



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Conversations, Developing Friendships, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Natasha Romanov, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, because seriously how DID they get back from New Jersey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuresailors/pseuds/futuresailors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She wonders how long it’s been since he smiled and it wasn’t some kind of defense mechanism. She also feels like kind of an asshole about the kiss thing. It wasn’t really <i>that</i> bad.</i>
</p><p>Natasha considers her place in Steve's life, his place in hers, and where it all goes from here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who are you to tell me how to keep myself afloat?

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this was originally going to be something about Steve and Sharon's friendship with, like, a cameo from Natasha, but somehow ended it up being almost completely about her. WHOOPS. I can't help myself.
> 
> I might write that other thing eventually.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Steve Rogers swears to Natasha Romanoff that he isn’t lonely. Steve Rogers is a terrible liar.

She understands why he may be hesitant to let her get involved in his life. People always assume she has ulterior motives, and that is more than fair, but in this case she really does just want to help. She genuinely likes Steve, he is clearly miserable in his current situation, and she wants to do something about it. Setting him up with someone as a distraction is the best solution she can think of that does not require time travel, so she’s going to keep trying.

*

“How about a friend?” he says, and it’s as casual as any conversation they’ve ever had but it’s also so sweet and honest and sad underneath that Natasha almost can’t look him in the eyes. She wonders how long it’s been since he smiled and it wasn’t some kind of defense mechanism. She also feels like kind of an asshole about the kiss thing. It wasn’t really _that_ bad.

She’s still thinking about their conversation when they reach Camp Lehigh and she sees the photos on the wall of the abandoned SHIELD bunker. It occurs to her how alone Steve really is in this century, how few people he can talk to. She’s the closest thing he has to a work friend, for God’s sake ( _work friend_ , she smirks to herself, like they have adjacent cubicles and send each other Christmas cards.) And now he’s explicitly asked for her to be a real friend, which is endearing as hell but also incredibly sad. Maybe he needs some stable non-romantic relationships before he can even think about dating. Maybe she’s been pressing this too hard.

And then, of course, all of this seems absurdly trivial, because a missile is hurtling towards them and she is very possibly going to die and then her last thoughts will have been about whether Captain America’s dating life is really any of her business. _Typical_ , she thinks as her vision starts to go black around the edges.

*

Natasha wakes up in the backseat of a moving car. It’s dark and her head hurts and she feels something on top of her, which she frantically attempts to free herself from, only to realize that it’s just Steve’s jacket. It smells like smoke. Everything smells like smoke.

“You okay?” she hears him say quietly from the front seat.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She sits up a little straighter and can see his worried eyes in the rearview mirror. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“This is not the same car in which we originally drove to New Jersey.”

“No, it’s not. I had to...acquire a different one for us, seeing as the other is now an exploded piece of metal surrounded by HYDRA agents.”

“We were in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah, well, you walk far enough, eventually you’re going to find a parking lot.”

“I can’t believe Captain America stole two cars in one day. And, wait a minute, how far is ‘far enough?’”

“A couple miles, Nat, I don’t know,” he huffs.

“So if I were to picture you heroically trekking through miles of dark woods while gently carrying my unconscious body to safety, how far from reality would that image be?”

“What was I supposed to do, leave you?”

“No, sorry. I’m just not exactly sure how to process what just happened,” she admits.

Steve sighs. “Me neither. I didn’t mean to snap at you. And I’m sorry if I scared you by putting you back there; I wasn’t really sure what to do.”

“It’s okay. I’m gonna come up there now, though, hang on.” She climbs into the passenger’s seat in one smooth motion, then turns to look at him. He’s covered in dirt and sweat and looks fairly shaken, but seems to be otherwise undamaged.

“Where are we going?” she asks after a moment, because she can’t think of many places they could go and not still be well and truly fucked.

“Back to DC. I don’t know what else to do, and I think I know a place we can hide out, unless you have one of your safehouses or something.”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t count on those anymore. Where’s your place? It’s not like we can go back to your SHIELD-issue apartment,” she says. _Where the one person who once upon a time maybe could have helped us was shot in the chest_ , she doesn’t say.

“You remember my friend Sam?”

“From the park?”

“Yeah.”

“Haven’t you spoken to him, like, twice?”

Steve sighs again. “I mean, yes, but what other options do we have? I don’t know a ton of people, Nat, especially ones that I can be sure haven’t actually been Nazis this whole time.”

“I guess you’re right. Fuck.”

They sit in silence for another minute, until he says, much more softly this time, “I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either,” she says, and puts her hand on his. “But we have to figure it out.”

*

She cries in the shower of Sam Wilson’s guest bathroom. One quick, nearly-silent sob as she stands under the hot water, watching streaks of blood and dirt fade from her skin and wondering how many times it is possible for one person to start again.

*

Later, when it’s all over and she’s walking out of the hearing with a crowd of reporters clamoring in her wake, Natasha thinks of how Pierce had attempted to taunt her as she downloaded SHIELD’s secrets. _Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?_ Did he think that would be enough to make her stop? Her history is full of questionable things, maybe even unforgivable ones, but revealing them changes nothing. Revealing SHIELD’s past, however, saved millions of lives. She never doubted that decision. Pierce didn’t think she was strong enough to take him down if it meant airing her own misdeeds, but she doesn’t care about her reputation anymore. She can always build a new one.

She doesn’t want to leave Steve, but she knows that it’s for the best. They both have huge parts of their pasts that they have to track down and confront, literally in his case, and after a certain point you have to do things like that on your own. She’ll try to help however she can if he asks, but this is it for now. She’s going to miss having him around, although it’s not like they’ll be entirely out of contact. He has to let her know how it goes with Sharon.

*

Natasha calls him a few weeks later because she wants to make sure he’s okay, to a degree that surprises her a little bit. She knew that Steve didn’t have many friends before now, but she’s realizing that she really didn’t either. She misses him.

“Hey,” he says when he picks up, knowing exactly who would be calling from an unlisted number at two in the morning.

“Did I wake you up? Sorry. Time zones.”

“It’s okay. It’s good to hear from you. Unless you’re just calling to try and set me up on more dates, in which case, mind your own business.”

She laughs. “Oh, that’s not something I’ve ever been good at doing. How are you?”

“That’s a big question.”

“Okay. You only have to talk to me about things you want to talk about.”

He sighs. “Well, we might have a few leads, but who knows.”

“That’s good. I’m happy to help, you know.”

“I know, but you’ve got your own things going.”

“That is an understatement.”

“I take it you’re not going to tell me where you are?”

“Not right now. Gotta get a few things taken care of first.”

“Understandable. I miss you, though,” he says.

“Enough to do what I asked you to?”

“Call Sharon, you mean? I did do that, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She’s great, we’ve been hanging out. But before you get your hopes up, it’s not happening like that because I’m still not really ready, and also because it turns out she’s related to someone I used to know. Someone I still know. It would be weird.”

Natasha pauses for a second. “Do you want to…” She knows about Peggy Carter, but not because he’s told her.

“Not really,” he says simply.

“Okay.”

“I also ran into Lillian the other day. Just on the street.”

“Lip ring Lillian?”

“Yeah.”

“How is she?”

“Well, she’s not HYDRA.”

“A promising start.”

Steve laughs softly. “She’s nice. She has an accounting job for, like, a normal company now.”

“Hey Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry if I ever pushed any of that on you too hard. I know it’s none of my business, but I just want you to be happy. You’re hard on yourself and you deserve to be happy.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. “I feel the same way about you, you know,” he says finally in a soft voice. “I really do.”

“Thanks,” she says, equally quiet.

“It _was_ a little much though. We weren’t even really friends yet.”

“Fair enough. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that everyone copes differently.”

“But we’re friends now.”

“I guess we are.” There’s another silence, but it’s affirmatory, not awkward. “Well,” she says after a minute, “I should go. But it was good to talk to you, Steve.”

“Yeah, you too. Please keep me in the loop.”

“Of course.” She hesitates a half second. “OK, love you.”

She regrets it almost immediately because Jesus, Romanoff, didn’t we _just_ have a conversation about being too forward, but then she hears him laugh a little on the other end of the line.

“I love you too. Don’t be a stranger, okay?” Steve says, hanging up without waiting for a response, and she smiles. _Love is for children_ , she’d said once, but she didn’t really mean it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Gun" by CHVRCHES.


End file.
